Michael Lewicki

(Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1931-1954), Saturday 27 April 1940, page 1)

I am not sure if you have noticed the names of the army photographers who took the group photos of the Italian prisoners of war: Geoffrey McInnes, Ronald Leslie Stewart and Lewecki.

Why did Steward and McInnes have their first names identified but not Lewecki? A little puzzle…

Once I started to look for more information about these army photographers, I found the answer to another puzzle:

why did the Italian prisoners of war look like criminals in their identification photos?

The answer is simple: these identification photos were standard army photographs.

Australian soldiers and Italian prisoners of war had the same type of photos taken. There was no stigma or negative aspect to these identification photos. This was just a process.

Read the article below to find out further information…

The man behind the camera and named as Lewecki is Michael Nicholas LEWICKI.  When he arrived in Australia in 1928 on the Cephee, he identified his nationality as Polish; his last residence as Germany and his occupation as agriculturalist.  By 1936 he was operating a successful business in partnership with Herman Schϋtze: The Leicagraph Company. They took street photographs, and were “skilled in sport, ballroom, commercial, portrait, outdoor and other branches of this art.”

By April 1940, Michael Lewicki was the official Defence Department photographer and the following article is from the Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1931-1954), Saturday 27 April 1940, page 5:

Pictures 350 A.I.F. Men Daily

Australia’s busiest cameraman is Mr Michael Lewicki, official Defence Department photographer.

He takes on an average of 700 pictures of A.I.F. recruits every day.

“Since war began, I have taken 19,000 pictures of soldiers,” Mr Lewicki said yesterday.

Mr Lewicki is a Pole by birth. He left Warsaw for Australia 12 years ago and is now a naturalised Australian.

He is engaged by the Defence Department under contract to take pictures of soldiers.

Photographed Twice

Every A.I.F. recruit has to be photographed twice – once full face and once profile.

From each negative four prints are taken.  One of these is pasted in the soldiers’ pay-book, and the rest are for Defence Department records.

Mr Lewicki’s studio was recently transferred from Ingleburn camp to the A.I.F. recruiting depot, Moore Park.

Recruits are enlisted and officially photographed on the same day.

At present 350 men ae being photographed daily, but Mr Lewicki’s single camera equipment is capable of photographing 1200 men a day.

It stands to reason that the identification photos of the Italian prisoners of war were also taken by these same photographers.  For those of you lucky enough to have copies of your father’s identification photos, you will notice that they were taken in the same manner as the Australian soldiers: one full face and one profile.

At first, it is easy to think that the Italians were made to look like criminals in the identification photos.  Reality is that it did not matter whether you were an Australian soldier or an Italian prisoner of war, the same photos were taken. This was part of military procedure.

Alfredo Bertini and William Hugh Lewis

(NAA: A7919 C99229 and NAA: A7919 C99409)

Michael Lewicki was taking identification photos of 350 recruits per day.

The first group of Italian prisoners of war to Australia in May 1941, totalled 2006.  I wonder how many days it took to take identification photos of these 2006 Italians at Hay Prisoner of War Camp. I wonder if Michael Lewicki took the identification photos of the Italian prisoners of war.  He had the equipment; and he had the experience.

If your father was photographed by LEWECKI, now you know a little more about the man behind the camera: Michael LEWICKI.